Too many to recount here. But here's a couple:
First of all, style: He was boring, boring, boring. One of his staffers should have sent out the hook about a third of the way in. 45 minutes? Sheesh. He was uncomfortable, nervous, stammering. Made me uneasy.
Incoherent. He'd start a sentence, stop, go in another direction and never make it back to where he started. He did this constantly throughout the speech. It was maddening.
His statements on fighting our enemies were weak, weak, weak. He kept saying we need to persuade our enemies...that our enemies would become our friends. How naive and silly can you get? We're talking about terrorists here. Sheesh.
He said something like, "We're not better than anybody else" in the world. Like hell we're not.
He kept talking about public education like any Democrat would talk. I wanted to throw up.
He talked about "bringing people out of poverty" or somesuch like he was Lyndon Johnson or something. I'll have to go back and read a full transcript to catch all that drivel.
Nothing presidential about this man at all. Nada.
His segue from domestic issues into the WOT (where he flipped 3 pages of notes while the audience applauded) looked too scripted and uncomfortable. But boring? No, come on. It's a CPAC political speech not an Eddie Murphy "Raw" stand up routine for crying out loud. That's about as entertaining as you're going to get.
Incoherent. He'd start a sentence, stop, go in another direction and never make it back to where he started.
True enough. But that's what people like about folksy orators that make it sound like they are talking from the heart instead of from a prepared speech. If the oratory is perfect in this environment it sounds canned.
He kept talking about public education like any Democrat would talk. I wanted to throw up. He talked about "bringing people out of poverty"
Yeah, we right wingers care about those things too. (I do and I'm sure you do also) They just don't believe that mo Gubmint is the solution. I thought he did a good job speaking about free market solutions to those issues.
But if that's your impression of him, you weren't watching the same speech as the rest of us.
You are mischaracterizing what he said on so many levels, but particularly in regard to what he said about our enemies.
What he said was that the war will continue until they no longer want to come over here and kill us. He said this is not a war on terror, this is their war on us. And he was VERY strong about meeting that challenge.
Yes, he looked with hope to the future. He gave the example that our enemies of WWII are now our friends. Our enemies of the Cold War are ~becoming~ our friends.
And THEN he said that someday - IF WE MEET THE CHALLENGE AS RONALD REAGAN DID WITH "PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH" then our enemies of today may someday be our friends.
That's what he said E.V.
And it was brilliant.
Maybe that's why you missed it.